There Will Never Be Silence: Scoring John Cage's 4'33"

On a warm summer evening in August 1952 pianist David Tudor approached a piano on stage at the Maverick Concert Hall in Woodstock, New York. Stopwatch in hand, Tudor sat before the piano and, without striking a note, premiered John Cage's composition 4'33". Commonly known as Cage's “silent” piece, 4'33" comprises three movements during which a performer—or performers—are instructed to produce no intentional sounds for four minutes and 33 seconds. This radical gesture upended the conventional structure of music, shifting attention from the performer to the audience, and allowing for endless possibilities of ambient sounds to fill the space. Today, 4'33" is recognized as a groundbreaking work that synthesizes Cage's interests in chance operations, experimental music, and visual arts. When discussing the work over his lifetime, Cage emphasized that, rather than intending to simply shock his audience, he hoped to attune listeners to silence as a structure within musical notation. In the visual arts, Cage's contemporaries were similarly using chance, “negative space,” and physically dematerialized works that encourage open presentations or interpretations of scripted experiences. This exhibition introduces the Museum's recently acquired score for 4'33" and examines it, and Cage's influence, as a critical pivot around which a diverse array of artists working throughout the 20th century can be united. Taking its title from a letter written by Cage in 1954, There Will Never Be Silence features prints, drawings, artists' books, photographs, paintings, sculptures, and films by such artists as Marcel Duchamp, Kurt Schwitters, Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Morris, Lawrence Weiner, Yoko Ono, Andy Warhol, and other artists associated with Fluxus, Minimalism, and Conceptual art who pushed preconceived boundaries of space, time, and physicality to new ends.

The exhibition is organized by David Platzker, Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints, with Jon Hendricks, Fluxus Consulting Curator

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Body/Head

Body/Head
with Kim Gordon and Bill Nace
featuring a DJ set by Kathleen Hanna

11/20/13: Please note that Adam Horovitz, better known as Ad-Rock of the Beastie Boys, will be DJing in place of Kathleen Hanna.

PopRally is thrilled to present a special performance by electric-guitar duo Body/Head, the current project of legendary musician, visual artist, and Sonic Youth cofounder/bassist Kim Gordon and free-noise guitarist Bill Nace. Body/Head's sound builds on epic drones, feedback, and guitar riffs, paired with expressive vocals in a uniquely crafted take on improvisation. Staged against a backdrop of slow-motion film projections, the project comprises both a visual and musical experience, blurring the lines between mediums. Joining for a DJ set is Feminist punk icon Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill, Le Tigre, and, most recently, her new band The Julie Ruin.

This performance is held in conjunction with There Will Never Be Silence: Scoring John Cage's 4'33", which commemorates John Cage's “silent” composition 4'33" which is performed before a piano without striking a note. This radical gesture upended the conventional structure of music, shifting attention from the performer to the audience, and allowing for endless possibilities of ambient sounds to fill the space. The exhibition takes an expansive look at the impact of 4’33”, featuring Dada, Fluxus, Minimalist, and Conceptual artists who pushed preconceived boundaries of space, time, and physicality to new ends. Driven on impulses from No Wave’s performativity, time-bending cinematic media, and Cagean chance operations, Body/Head is a project that, like 4’33”, challenges the conventions of the concert experience.

Guests will enjoy a cocktail reception, and exclusive access to There Will Never Be Silence: Scoring John Cage's 4'33", after Museum hours.

Special thanks to Sud de France wines: Prieuré St-Julien, Jaja de Jau, and O by Gilles Louvet. Beer for this event has been provided by Brooklyn Brewery.

Let's Enact Silence: John Cage in Context

How was John Cage's silence pertinent to his time? Beginning with an examination of Cage's 4’33" and Barnett Newman's The Voice in relation to their writings, we explore the ideas of silence, the sublime, war, and Zen through a discussion of the artworks on view and enactments of Fluxus scores.

Eszter Salamon: Dance for Nothing

“I had a problem with insomnia so I thought I should empty my head.
Then I thought I should maybe start by emptying my dance
and then later on empty my head..."

Thus begins Eszter Salamon's Dance for Nothing, a performance that uses John Cage's extraordinary experimental work Lecture on Nothing (c. 1949–50) as a spoken, rhythmic score.

Lecture on Nothing, a prose work, was composed on the page like a piece of music, replete with moments of pause, repetition, and a complex time scheme. Salamon recites a text, her movements becoming a parallel action, introducing different—and perhaps more contemporary—moods and temporalities. Over the course of the piece, Cage's words and Salamon's gestures intersect and diverge, depending on the connotative juxtapositions, along with each viewer's predispositions and reaction. The two elements are meant to be interpreted independently, as Salamon explains: "The dance should be autonomous and never become an illustration or a commentary on the text."

MoMA's presentation of Dance for Nothing—in its U.S. premiere—is organized in conjunction with the exhibition There Will Never Be Silence: Scoring John Cage's 4'33", which centers around MoMA’s recent acquisition of 4'33", Cage’s groundbreaking “silent” score. This work represented a groundbreaking revolutionary gesture, introducing chance procedures and subverting the conventions of music—and of art in general. 4'33" remains a major influence on contemporary art practice and theory.

Eszter Salamon is a Paris- and Berlin-based choreographer, dancer, and performer whose work has been presented internationally. She has created a great number of remarkable solo works, including What a Body You Have, Honey and Giszelle (both 2001), in collaboration with Xavier Le Roy; Reproduction (2004), a piece for eight dancers; Magyar Tàncok (2005), with Hungarian folk dancers and musicians; Nvsbl (2006) and AND THEN (2007), a film-choreography in collaboration with Bojana Cvejić; Dance #1/Driftworks (2008), in collaboration with Christine De Smedt; Dance for Nothing (2010); and, with B. Cvejić, C. Dambrain, and Terre Thaemlitz, TALES OF THE BODILESS (2011). In 2012, she premiered her solo documentary performance Melodrama at the Berlin Documentary Forum.

Performing John Cage

In 1952 John Cage premiered his influential “silent” composition 4'33". Today 4'33" is recognized for upending traditional notions and structures of music and for opening up the possibilities of how we can fill space with sound emanating from chance, experimentation, and the surrounding audience and environment. In 1963, Cage debuted an interpretation of the composer Erik Satie's Vexations by having performers repeat the motif 840 times, as per Satie's original manuscript. In this series of performances, held in conjunction with the exhibition There Will Never Be Silence: Scoring John Cage’s 4'33", artists, musicians, and MoMA staff members activate these two compositions in their own ways. Performers include Martha Wilson, Michael Smith, Geoffrey Hendricks, Lizzi Bougatsos, Serra Sabuncuoglu, and others.

John Cage: More than Meets the Eye

Just as John Cage “hoped to attune listeners to silence as a structure within musical notation,” this session aims to attune viewers to their mind’s eye as a structure for visualizing art. Closing, veiling, and opening their eyes, participants are led through a series of exercises that demonstrate the power of the imagination and mental imagery in looking, seeing, and interpreting art. Derived from art-viewing techniques for people who are blind or have low vision, these experiences enhance an understanding that we all see, if differently.

Let's Enact Silence: John Cage in Context

How was John Cage’s silence pertinent to his time? Beginning with an examination of Cage's 4’33" and Barnett Newman`s The Voice in relation to their writings, we explore the ideas of silence, the sublime, war, and Zen through a discussion of the artworks on view and enactments of Fluxus scores.

From Chance to the Possibilities of Silence: The Origins of John Cage’s 4'33" and Its Context

Join us for a conversation and a hands-on activity in the exhibition There Will Never Be Silence: Scoring John Cage's 4'33". Discuss John Cage, the origins of his philosophy of chance, and his effect on his contemporaries.

Take a Chance!: Exploring the Chance Operation

Join us for an exploration of the artistic possibilities of the chance operation Marcel Duchamp used in creating his 3 Standard Stoppages, and learn how this innovative concept and process impacted John Cage in his work with music and sound. The session ends with an experiment involving dropping pieces of string to see if it’s possible to achieve similar curves.

John Cage’s Silence (Before, During, and After)

Join us in the exhibition There Will Never Be Silence: Scoring John Cage’s 4'33" and experiment with Cage’s exploration of silence as sound. Experience the impact of Cage’s radical approach to “scoring," not only in the field of music and dance, but in the space of visual art.

Visit the Learning Lounge, organized in conjunction with There Will Never Be Silence: Scoring John Cage's 4'33", adjacent to the exhibition and the Bauhaus Staircase. Visitors are invited to rest and explore writings and scores by Cage and other artists who have been influenced by his legacy; use mobile devices to record and share the surrounding “silence” via Soundcloud; and listen to the Sounds of Silence radio show, developed by exhibition curator David Platzker.

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